Building utopia here and now? Left and working-class utopias in Ireland

Abstract

While a powerful strand of both environmental and religious utopianism has been to construct purpose-built communities âsomewhere elseâ, usually in rural settings, a combination of lack of resources and doubts about the strategic usefulness of such projects has led most working-class or left utopias to have a different focus. Typically, these latter grew within the struggle to meet everyday needs, in the course of political campaigns or at the highpoint of society-wide struggles, and were understood strategically, as part of a broader struggle for change. This article explores some aspects of left and working-class utopias in Ireland across the 20th century, and attempts to relate them to broader theoretical questions about working-class self-organisation and strategies for social change.